Lease is signed but tenant wants to back out. What should I do?

[Jason Butts]

My wife and I finally found applicants that qualify our vetting process.

They are a middle-aged couple with no children looking to rent a spacious one bedroom apartment off of us. Our impression of them was that they were a happy couple with good positive vibes.

Each of them filled out their own application and completed separate background checks. We got a 1 year lease signed with both of their names on it on February 10, 2020 for a rental term of March 1, 2020 until Feb 28, 2021. 

We got a text message today from the female applicant stating that her and her boyfriend had broken up because he had cheated on her and he also apparently lied to her about having cancer.

My wife is ready to strap on the legal boxing gloves and go after them for the full term of the leases worth of money. I am more interested in doing my homework to figure out how to approach the situation legally. We stopped advertising the apartment the day the lease was signed and haven’t spoken about it to anybody else so there is no other potential tenant in line behind them.

We are new to Real Estate and this is something that we’ve not encountered before so neither of us know exactly what to do legally.

The rental is in Ohio

If anybody could help us figure out what to do that would be extremely helpful.

Thank you